Have you ever thought about going freelance or trying to make extra money from your hobby? New Aussie website www.whatcanyoudo.co.uk is bringing freelancers and job seekers together with those who might need their services – and best of all they’re doing it for free! There are no charges involved for the freelancer, worker or the employer. Now that’s refreshing.

So, if it’s not a site that charges commissions for freelance projects or for advertising your position, what sort of site is it and how does it work? It’s all very simple really – it’s a community minded website that allows you to put up your profile and advertise “what you can do”. Anyone interested in your services can contact you. Likewise, if you have a job to fill or you need to find someone with a particular skill (whether it’s quilt making or bricklaying) you can advertise your position for all to see.

Most of us find ourselves looking for work or just for a little extra cash at various times in our lives. It might be because we’re unemployed, need a change, have debts we want to pay off quickly, or simply because we are keen to generate an income from a hobby or to work from home using our own skills.

Would you benefit from a profile on www.whatcanyoudo.co.uk? Here are some of the many possibilities:

• Are you a website or graphic designer, writer, artist, actor, dressmaker or otherwise creative individual? Advertising on the Internet is now one of the most effective ways to advertise your freelance services.

• Looking for a change? If you’re looking for a change of career or perhaps just a  change of employer, sometimes you have to ask around to find opportunities. What better way to do that than to advertise your qualities and skills to the massive Internet audience? You just never know where that opportunity will come from!

• Want to make money working from home? If you have a skill you think you can sell and you want to do a little market research before going freelance full time, this is a great place to start looking – find out who might be interested in your skills and what type of jobs might come your way. You could soon be making a little extra money from home.

• Make money from your hobby! Whether you need the extra cash or not there’s something very satisfying about being able to sell things that you’ve made with your own hands – even if the amount you sell it for doesn’t quite compensate for the hours of work you put into it! From rocking horses to patchwork quilts to colourful handmade jewellery – you could turn your spare time into extra money and make the pastime you love even more enjoyable!

• You might be simply looking for a job. Some industries are still not back in full swing after the global financial crisis and many tradespeople and other workers are still finding it tough to find full time work. Actively advertising your desire to find a job on the Internet can turn up all sorts of opportunities – you just never know who is viewing your profile.

When it’s free advertising and there’s no catch involved, what have you got to lose by adding your profile? Who knows, it might even be the launching pad you need for your new career or for your new life as a work-from-home freelancer! There’s no better time than now to get started so check it out today at www.whatcanyoudo.co.uk.

A little extra money comes in handy for just about everybody. Whether you desperately need extra money to cope with mounting bills, to buy something special, or you’d just like to top up your regular income, we’re sure you’d agree that an extra hundred here and there can always be put to good use!

We’re also sure there’s something you can do to earn it! Are you creative? Can you write, paint portraits or make something beautiful or weird? Perhaps there’s something you can teach somebody else to do or maybe you have time to do some odd jobs on the weekend.

If you’ve been racking your brains and you’re thinking there’s just NOTHING you can do, think again!  Take a leaf from the book of the Western Australian women who recently started a thriving little business called The Poop Scoop. What can they do? Well, no doubt among other things, they are very capable in the field of scooping poop! Now you’d have to wonder why that service wasn’t being offered decades ago – could it be that nobody thought of it?

If you need to earn extra money keep those cognitive cogs turning and you’ll soon be putting up your profile on WCYD telling us what you can do.

Have you considered finding your new employees online? Many Australian employers have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride over the past two years – particularly in regard to finding quality employees.

Currently, unemployment seems to be rising and many average Australians have been struggling to find work in recent months – but it was not so very long ago that the unemployment rate was exceptionally low. Tradespeople had plenty of work and good employees were so hard to come by that many were “job jumping” and offering their services to the highest bidder. Some employers simply couldn’t fill their vacancies. Thankfully – for employers – that time has passed, at least for now.

There’s usually a cost involved in searching for employees, and if you have to do it week after week, it can get very expensive, especially in times when the unemployment rate is low and the response rate to your advertisement is almost zero! Now is a great time to consider changing the way you search for employees because you can find top quality employees online – often faster and less expensively than you can using traditional media advertising.

Here are several great methods of finding employees online:

1. There are services such as www.seek.co.uk that are essentially online job classifieds. You’ll pay to use the service, but there are many prospective employees that visit the site – particularly for office based and IT related jobs, but increasingly for trades and manual labour positions too.

2. Some keen prospective employees take matters into their own hands and post profiles on sites like www.whatcanyoudo.co.uk. Find profiles on the site and you’ll be able to get quite a good idea as to the candidates’ suitability for your firm before you even make contact with them. The choice of contact can be yours – or you can advertise your position on the site for free. This can be a great way of finding employees. You could be pleasantly surprised to find the ideal person. If you post your position on the site, you have an advantage – people who aren’t registered on the site will see it too, so you won’t be limited to the people who have joined and posted their profiles.

3. You can use your own website to attract prospective employees. If you have regular vacancies to fill through the year consider adding a “Vacancies” or “Employment” page to your company website. Doing that also puts out the welcome mat for general employment enquiries and you may be able to build up a list of prospective employees to contact when a position arises. Don’t forget to update the page regularly if you’re advertising particular positions – leaving a vacancy up there once it’s filled will waste your time and that of any applicants.

4. There are also free classified advertisements online. A particularly good one is Gumtree. It’s a high traffic website used by a variety of people and it’s nicely categorized and divided into states. People use it to buy and sell but also to seek employees, seek work and advertise their services.

Advertising your position online in any form can net interesting results. People all over the country will see your advertisement – and people who are travelling here from interstate are usually looking for work before they arrive. They’re prospective employees you’ll miss out on hearing from using traditional media. So get with it, and get online – you’ll have more prospective employees to choose from and that means a greater chance you’ll find exactly the right one!

If you’re looking for work, whether it’s a regular job or freelance work that you’re looking for, get your profile online here today! It’s a totally free service to help you out so you’ve got nothing to lose but a couple of minutes of your time – and who knows, you may have a brand new job or a great freelance assignment coming your way very soon.

Bear in mind that not all prospective employers are registered on the site – there are many more that drop by just for a look, and if they like the look of what you have to offer, they might just get in touch. Employees who take the initiative to advertise themselves can be particularly attractive to employers. Did we mention it’s free? You’ve absolutely nothing to lose by giving it a go.

Simply register then use the step by step instructions to build your profile.

There’s no need to stop at one profile either! If you have multiple skills, why not set up a profile for each of them. You might be an attractive proposition for a variety of employers, so treat your profile like a resume and tailor one to each type of employer you’d like to attract. And no, we’re not going to trick you and charge you after the first profile – it’s all completely free!

Whether you’re a graphic designer, a freelance writer, process worker, dressmaker or a tradesperson, we want to help you find the work you’re looking for – for free!

Owning your own business is simply fabulous really. You get to make the rules, come and go as you please, and work without someone peering over your shoulder.  Essentially, you get to be in total control. You’re at the helm which means you can do things your way and keep everything running just as you want it to – at least until you have to employ someone!

Whether you have one employee or many, your business is often at their mercy. These days, if people want to take a day off they often do, even if it causes you a significant problem. Where once work was considered an all important livelihood, now it’s “just work” and many other things can take priority. Let’s face it – nobody cares quite as much about the productivity and profit level of your business as you do. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about this – except to hire the hardest working, responsible and most like minded employees you can find. But where on earth will you find them?

The key to finding top employees is to widen your search so you can consider as many candidates as possible. Why not take a look online? There you’ll find people diligently searching for work. Instead of sitting through hours of interviews, you’ll be able to spend just minutes scanning online profiles.

Possibly the best thing about hiring online is that you can do it quickly – and for a small business with limited employees, filling a position quickly is usually crucial to the work flow.

Most successful freelancers, self employed tradesmen, and home based business people will tell you that one of the most important qualities you’re going to need in order to work for yourself is discipline.

As an employee, you don’t need that much of it. When the alarm goes off each morning you know that – at least on most occasions – you have to go to work. You go through the motions of showering and having breakfast and off you go through the morning traffic to arrive at the time your employer requires you there. As a general rule, you don’t pick and choose the particular tasks you’ll do for your employer either. You do what they ask you to do within the scope of your employment.

The minute you start to work for yourself, all of that goes out the window. The threat of losing your job is gone. Now, you have total control over your day and your income – but the freedom that comes with self employment is a double edged sword.

Suddenly, there’s no need to set the alarm. That can be a huge plus – you’ll feel so much better if you’re allowed to awake naturally and the chances are you’ll wake up around the same time or shortly after the alarm would normally wake you. The catch is you don’t actually have to get out of bed.

When you do, unless you’ve arranged to be somewhere, there’s absolutely no compelling reason to get out of your pyjamas and into the shower. In fact, sipping coffee over the morning newspaper until 10am can be very tempting because you don’t have to start work at all if you don’t want to!

When it comes to dealing with potential clients and jobs, it’s ever so easy to decide you don’t want to do a particular job, or work for a particular client, and turn a job away. Truth be told, there are always some clients that are more trouble than they’re worth, but when you turn a job away, you need to be sure you’re doing it for a good reason – hopefully because you’ve already got too much work to do!

It’s just as easy to take on too much and end up working seven days a week. As much as you need to discipline yourself to work, you need to discipline yourself to schedule time off. If you’re working from a home office, it’s very easy to continue working into the night and over the weekend when you should be spending that time with your family. That was one of the compelling reasons you decided to work for yourself wasn’t it?

You’ll need to learn to say no to a number of things. For example, when:

• a client asks you to do a job in an unrealistic time frame or a job you just don’t have time to do by the date they require it;
• a prospective client asks you to drop your price to match a cheaper quote;
• a family member tempts you with a recreational activity when you must work to get a job completed;

Being self-employed is all about discipline – and finding that balance between having more time to do the things you enjoy and earning sufficient income.

If you’re looking for temporary or casual employment, why not add your profile to whatcanyoudo.co.uk? The site is free for everyone to use – people looking for work, and those looking for employees. If you create a fabulous profile outlining your skills you just never know who will find you here.

Perhaps you’re hoping to find work you can do from home on a temporary or casual basis. If you have administrative or technical skills and can work from home just as easily as from office premises, you might find employers willing to outsource work to you.

Having an overflow of work can be a difficult situation for employers – it’s often a temporary situation so they can’t justify hiring a permanent new employee. For a person who wants to work from home, or just work periodically, filling in as an emergency employee can be ideal.

If you need work quickly and you have multiple skills, cast a wide net – create a profile specific to each skill you have to offer. The employment market is forever changing, particularly in terms of the types of work on offer. If you have multiple profiles online you can receive more enquiries about the type of work you are able to do – and you might just find a new niche market for your skills.

If an employer needs assistance fast and believes you can do the work, they might offer you the opportunity to develop a new skill or gain valuable experience.

Surprising things can happen when you seek temporary or casual employment online!

Managers of office based businesses often complain about the difficulty finding good “temp” employees. Many businesses use “temps” when they need to cover employee holiday periods, sick leave or maternity absences or when there’s an influx of work that is likely to subside rather than become a permanent work volume increase.

There are many temp agencies offering to fill the gaps for you but for many employers there are two main problems experienced when you have to call in a temp:

1. The hourly rate for a temp can be quite expensive. That’s because not only is the worker being paid a higher rate for the inconvenience of having only temporary employment, but because the agency has to make money from the temp every hour too. If the job is simply typing, the hourly rate can seem quite unreasonable.

2. They’re often not helpful at all. They might be quite good in many aspects but some jobs require a certain period of training for a person to do them properly and a temporary worker can’t always achieve of a high level of competence from the minute they arrive. They’re often just getting the hang of it when the regular employee returns! If you do find a brilliant temp, it’s usually difficult the get them again the next time – good temps are often offered permanent positions with good salaries and are gone by the next time you need a temp!

Next time you think about hiring a temp to fill a gap, you might like to consider outsourcing the work to a home based worker, online business or a freelancer instead. With modern electronic communications, laptops, thumb drives, video conferencing and sound files, a great deal of office work no longer has to be done in your office.

Here are two possible approaches to consider:

 If you have a regular overflow of work and find yourself frequently calling for temporary personnel, or struggling to cope with the workload, consider searching online to find a freelancer capable of doing the work and coming to an arrangement with them to help you out as required. A freelancer might be prepared to attend the office if need be and will soon become familiar with the tasks required.

 If you’re able to find a home based business or an online service that can competently do the work, consider making regular use of them! If they undertake your work regularly, they’ll quickly become competent with it and there’s every chance that the increased level of efficiency will make them cheaper to use than a temp service over the long term.

Having the same person undertake the task regularly is always going to be more efficient that having a different person do it each time. Consider reviewing your office tasks and considering whether they can be just as easily done outside your office. If you’re not sure whether there is technology available that would make it possible, ask an IT expert. You might find that using in-office temp employees is no longer necessary.